Gabriel Attal thoroughly savored the moment, enjoying the standing ovation he received, 5,000 kilometers from his prime minister's office and its attendent crises. Standing in Quebec, just inches from the "throne" – the furniture comprising the podium and chair of the president of the Assemblée nationale du Québec – the French prime minister had just concluded his speech to the local MPs on Thursday, April 11. Speaking in the Assemblée's Salon Bleu, the youngest prime minister of the French Fifth Republic (35 years old) extolled the virtues of the type of secularism at the "heart of our shared identity"; the French language, that must be protected; and an "adventurous" population of young people, that must be fought for. "It is through youth, and always through youth, that we will triumph," he declared, taking on a presidential tone.
Quebec's elected representatives enthusiastically applauded the French prime minister, who, in less than 30 minutes, had attempted to mend the previously strained ties between the two "cousins" with their "intertwined identities," in the words of Quebec Assemblée's president, Nathalie Roy. "I'm well aware that this applause is for France," former French president Nicolas Sarkozy had admitted to the same Assemblée, in February 2009.
On this occasion, Attal wanted to believe in his own success. At the dinner organized a few hours later by his Quebecker counterpart, François Legault, he said that he had been "personally touched" by the Canadian welcome; both in Quebec City and in Ottawa where he had been greeted with ceremonial honors befitting a French president. "You probably don't follow French news very closely, but I don't get such a welcome at the Assemblée Nationale [in France]," he joked, a glass of Quebec's traditional ice cider in hand.
In Paris, the prime minister has been sailing into a headwind. At the end of his first 100 days in office, the off-kilter state of France's public finances has worried political leaders and limited his room to maneuver. "It's going to end badly," warned Gérard Larcher, president of the Sénat (Les Républicains, LR, right), in an interview with the Le Journal du Dimanche weekend newspaper on April 14. The planned reforms to France's unemployment insurance system and to the status of civil servants have become a source of tension. What's more, week after week, the Rassemblement National (RN, far-right) has confirmed its lead in the polls for the June 9 European elections, dangerously outstripping the presidential coalition's list. His list's downward trend is so pronounced that the socialist left list, led by Raphaël Glucksmann, has begun to believe they can overtake the list led by Renaissance (Macron centrist party) candidate Valérie Hayer, and now dream of winning second place in this election, which is crucial to the political identity of Macron's supporters.
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